The Glory-Beaming Banjo

July 2 is exactly the midpoint of the year, with 182 days preceding and 182 days to follow. It seems like a good time to reassess my goals for 2025. In years past, I would post my goals in January. This year, I didn't even bother doing that. I figured you probably get tired of constantly hearing how I'm behind on my playing goals, so guess what?  I'm behind on my playing goals this year.  I totally missed two months of playing, not playing at all in March and May. However, I started to get back into a groove in June. I'm hoping to use that momentum for second half push to get back to playing music regularly.  I typically set three playing time goals each year: a primary goal, a minimum goal and a stretch goal. I was hoping to reach 100 hours of combined playing this year, with a minimum goal of beating last year's total of 85 hours and a stretch goal of 124 hours.  Having missed two whole months and topping out at a combined 5.5 hours in February, the only goal ...

S ince declaring this The Year of Ward Jarvis earlier this year, I have dedicated myself to learning some tunes from the repertoire of Ward Jarvis, a fiddler who lived in Athens County, Ohio, and was an influence on a number of old-time musicians in the state. Over the last couple months, I managed to track down the recordings of David Brose and digital copies of the two LPs he produced, thanks to some helpful folks at the Fiddle Hangout . The first tune on my list was "Head of the Creek," played in AEAE. My primary source was Jarvis's playing on the Field Recorder's Collective release FRC402 , with a transcription from the Milliner-Koken Collection of American Fiddle Tunes . I also have Jeff Goehring's version on FRC601 . In addition, there are some recordings available on YouTube, such as Jimmy Triplet , Kerry Blech and others . Some of those versions are played in GDGD. A few of the videos mention Lester McCumbers as the source, as in the Blech video h...